The New York Times Is Obsessed with 2 Things. You Already Know What They Are.

It would be good for the health of the Republic, I think, if every national political reporter at The New York Times weren't hellbent on becoming Maureen Dowd. A good case in point is Amy Chozick, who eagerly joins la Dowd for Throwback Wednesday in the cocktail lounge of the Mena Airport.

But at an Upper East Side dinner party a few months back, Ms. Dunham expressed more conflicted feelings. She told the guests, at the Park Avenue apartment of Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO, that she was disturbed by how, in the 1990s, the Clintons and their allies discredited women who said they had had sexual encounters with or been sexually assaulted by former President Bill Clinton. The conversation, relayed by several people with knowledge of the discussion who would speak about it only anonymously, captures the deeper debate unfolding among liberal-leaning women about how to reconcile Mrs. Clinton's leadership on women's issues with her past involvement in her husband's efforts to fend off accusations of sexual misconduct.

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This sounds serious. Is there any evidence cited to demonstrate that this "deeper debate" is "unfolding"? Is there any data to prove that 20-year old scandals are "eroding" HRC's support among "liberal-leaning" women? Are you kidding? This is the Times and these are the Clintons, and those sort of concerns were buried two decades ago in a foundation hole dug by the Whitewater Development Corporation. Let us push on nonetheless.

But the resurfacing of the scandals of the 1990s has brought about a rethinking among some feminists about how prominent women stood by Mr. Clinton and disparaged his accusers after the "bimbo eruptions," as a close aide to the Clintons, Betsey Wright, famously called the claims of affairs and sexual assault against Mr. Clinton in his 1992 campaign. Even some Democrats who participated in the effort to discredit the women acknowledge privately that today, when Mrs. Clinton and other women have pleaded with the authorities on college campuses and in workplaces to take any allegation of sexual assault and sexual harassment seriously, such a campaign to attack the women's character would be unacceptable.

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It's 1990's Bingo! Again, any data from which can be adduced that this two-rail blast from the past is having any impact on the 2016 presidential campaign? Please.

Much of her involvement played out behind the scenes, and was driven, in part, by her sense that right-wing forces were using the women and salacious stories to damage her husband's political ambitions. Her reflex was to protect him and his future, and, early on, she turned to a longtime Clinton loyalist, Ms. Wright, to defend him against the allegations, according to multiple accounts at the time, documented in books and oral histories. "We have to destroy her story," Mrs. Clinton said of one of the first women to come forward during her husband's first presidential campaign, Connie Hamzy, in 1991, according to George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton administration aide who described the events in his memoir, "All Too Human.'' (Three people signed sworn affidavits saying Ms. Hamzy's story was false.)

Whoa. Connie Hamzy? There's a blast from the past. And did the three people who signed sworn affidavits perjure themselves, because that would be a helluva story. And who were they?

Now that the stories are resurfacing, they could hamper Mrs. Clinton's attempts to connect with younger women, who are learning the details of the Clintons' history for the first time. Several news organizations have published guides to the Clinton scandals to explain the allegations to a new generation of readers.

Let me follow the bouncing ball of hypocrisy here. HRC is a hypocrite for campaigning as a champion of women's rights because of things she may have said or done 20 years ago, but it's Donald Trump who gets to raise the question, and nobody breaks down laughing? This is quite an election we're having.

They could. But there's no evidence that they are. (One CNN poll out of New Hampshire, quoted near the end of the story, is a pretty thin reed.) Lena Dunham allegedly said something at a dinner party, but she's out there campaigning for HRC. There's someone who runs a feminist blog, and an author. I don't think it's unfair to surmise that the only reason to print this story at all is to wallow in 20-year old gossip again. When you end up quoting Camille Paglia, though, it's time to pick up your change, call a cab, and go home.